


time goes by so slowly

by imagines



Series: no time to hesitate [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, M/M, emotional hurt/comfort basically, i didn’t mean to write porn but here we are!, kind of an established relationship but also really NOT, lol nobody has any self-control in this story, minor character death (briefly), otabek is pretty shy and yuri is extremely not, set like 5-7 years in the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9374642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagines/pseuds/imagines
Summary: Whenever the phone rings at 4 a.m., it’s never someone calling to say you won a million dollars or an all-expenses-paid cruise to the Caribbean, or that your bronze medal has just been bumped up to silver due to some kind of scandal. 4 a.m. calls are reserved for emergencies and tragedies, so Otabek’s heart almost slams out of his chest when Yuri’s name pops up on the screen at 4:13 a.m. on a freezing January night.





	

Whenever the phone rings at 4 a.m., it’s never someone calling to say you won a million dollars or an all-expenses-paid cruise to the Caribbean, or that your bronze medal has just been bumped up to silver due to some kind of scandal. 4 a.m. calls are reserved for emergencies and tragedies, so Otabek’s heart almost slams out of his chest when Yuri’s name pops up on the screen at 4:13 a.m. on a freezing January night. He fumbles for the ANSWER key. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

In a frozen, raspy monotone, Yuri says, “Grandpa’s dead.” And that’s all he manages before he starts crying.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry. What can I do? Can I do anything?” Otabek asks.

Yuri says through tears, “Can you come?”

“I’ll be on the next flight.” Otabek scrambles out of bed, phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, shoving underwear into a backpack. “Where should I meet you?”

“Home. I’m leaving the hospital while they—move him.”

“Okay. I’m coming.” Otabek hangs up.

Two hours later he’s on a plane to Moscow. He spends the flight in a daze. The last time he saw Yuri was at Trophée de France three years ago, where Yuri won gold, naturally. Otabek didn’t manage to qualify for the final that year, and after a knee injury in practice a few months later that required surgery, he’d opted to retire. Kazakhstan still adored him, though; a generation of new skaters had grown up watching him. He’d even trained many of them.

After the free program in France, Yuri had hugged him hard and said, “Let’s keep in touch,” and for awhile, they had. But as Yuri’s star rose ever higher, he'd had less and less time for posts to Instagram or Twitter, let alone Skype chats with Otabek.

Once, they’d talked and flirted so much that Otabek had thought they might be nearly dating; now, he didn’t even know the music for Yuri’s programs this season. _But I’m still the one you call when the worst happens...or maybe I just live closest?_ Otabek stares out the window, tapping his fingers on the armrest. He can never sleep on airplanes, so he spends the remaining time in a strange half-dreaming state instead, where nothing seems real and he’s faintly nauseous until they land. He takes a cab to Yuri’s apartment and texts when he’s almost there.

It’s a _really_ nice building, not the one he’s seen pictures of before, where Yuri grew up. _When did they move here?_

Yuri is waiting on the front stoop, mouth tight, eyes swollen, hair in tangles. He doesn’t appear to have showered _or_ slept in some time. He steps back when Otabek goes to hug him, his body stiff and drawn. “Hi,” he says.

Otabek pulls up short and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Hi. How are you holding up?”

Yuri’s sharp, wrecked laugh is anything but friendly. “How does it fucking look like I’m holding up, Otabek?”

Otabek takes a deep breath. This is a normal reaction for Yuri to have. Grief makes people angry sometimes. “That’s fair. I’m sorry.”

“I guess you’d better come in.” Yuri walks into the building, leaving the door hanging open. Otabek closes it carefully behind them.

Inside the apartment, if Otabek didn’t know, it wouldn’t seem like anything was out of order. Grandpa’s favorite brown sweater, huge and soft and a little moth-eaten, still hangs over the back of the overstuffed armchair by the living room window.

Yuri goes immediately to his bedroom and shuts the door, leaving Otabek to stand in an empty space he can’t ever fill. He kicks off his shoes and pads through the rooms, trailing his fingers along Grandpa’s desk, looking at all the photos framed on the walls (mostly of Yuri), seeing the shape of the man who isn’t here anymore. In the kitchen, he gets himself a glass of water and opens the fridge—maybe he can buy groceries for Yuri or something.

On the middle shelf is a takeout box with _Никола́й_ scrawled across it. _Nikolai_. Otabek frowns—if they’d just eaten together recently, this death must have been sudden. He wishes he’d visited sooner. Grandpa had always called him “such a nice boy” and insisted on stuffing him with homemade food whenever he was in Russia. It had always seemed like there would be more time, later, and somehow months had turned into years before Otabek knew it.

He goes to Yuri’s room and taps on the door.

“What?” comes the reply.

Otabek pushes the door open a few centimeters. “Can I come in?”

“Why not.” Yuri’s lying on his bed, facedown and fully dressed. His curtains are pulled shut so only faint daylight filters into the room.

Otabek slips inside and shuts the door, but doesn’t go any further.

“You going to talk or what?” Yuri says into his pillow.

“I don’t think there’s anything to say.”

“Got that right.” The broken laugh again. “You know, I thought it’d be his heart? Just in case, I learned CPR. Then he goes and drops dead of a fucking aneurysm. Nothing I could do. The universe must be laughing its goddamn ass off.”

“Shit.” Otabek approaches the edge of the bed. “Okay if I sit here?”

“Do what you want. I don’t give a shit.”

 _Why’d you call me, then?_ Otabek thinks, more bitter than he wants to be. Yuri is prickly on a good day, and this has to be the worst day of his life. “When did it happen?”

“A couple of hours before I called you.” Yuri turns onto his side, facing Otabek now, blank-faced. “I keep thinking I hear him in the next room. If I close my eyes, it’s almost like…” His eyes drift shut, then snap back open.

“Yuri, have you slept at all?”

Yuri shakes his head. “Can’t.”

Gingerly, Otabek lies down on the bed too, placing his hand palm-up near Yuri. It’s not a request. Just an offer.

Yuri stares at Otabek’s hand. “Why are you exactly the same?” He grabs Otabek’s hand and squeezes so hard Otabek winces.

“I don’t know,” Otabek says, because he doesn’t. Maybe retiring froze him in time.

“Thanks for coming.” Yuri’s eyes close again and stay that way. He doesn’t let go of Otabek’s hand. “I don’t know why… you did…”

A large, fluffy cat hops up on the bed and fits herself between Otabek and Yuri, curling up into a happy ball of fur. From the many cat photos Yuri has posted, Otabek remembers her name is Tigritsa, one of the #catsofinstagram. “Hello there,” Otabek whispers, scratching her behind the ears with his free hand. He lets her purrs lull him to sleep.

 

 

Over the next few days, a procession of Grandpa’s friends visit the apartment, bringing armloads of food, which Yuri accepts with more grace and politeness than Otabek has ever seen him muster before.

Otabek keeps in the background during these interactions, uncertain of his place and not wanting to intrude. None of the visitors are Yuri’s age. Does Yuri _have_ friends here? He can’t think of a single Instagram post of Yuri’s that has included anyone outside the skating world.

Every day, Yuri wanders through the apartment like a ghost revisiting lost, beloved moments of his life. Sometimes Otabek finds him paralyzed, holding a framed photo, looking at it like he’s going to dive into it and stay there forever, somewhere else in time. Sometimes he wears Nikolai’s sweater, refusing to ever wash it, always placing it back on the chair as reverently as if it had belonged to a saint. He sleeps at odd hours and sits awake at odd hours, and Otabek has to remind him when to eat.

Otabek places calls to Kazakhstan, making arrangements for an unexpected long trip away from home. He’s not leaving until things seem more level here.

One day, unable to do nothing any longer, Yuri attacks the refrigerator, throwing stale leftovers into the trash. Suddenly he freezes, staring at a styrofoam box in his hands with _Никола́й_ written on it. “It got pushed to the back,” he says. “I forgot all about it. Obviously it’s trash now, I just…”

Otabek gently takes the box from Yuri and closes the refrigerator door. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “It’s his handwriting, isn’t it?”

Yuri nods. Otabek snaps a picture of the box and texts it to Yuri.

“There,” Otabek says. “Now you can keep it without… keeping it.”

Something like a smile flits across Yuri’s lips for the first time since Otabek arrived. “Thanks.”

“Come stay with me for awhile,” Otabek blurts out. Shit, he’d meant to lead up to that more, but he’d better keep going since he’s started. “You can visit Moscow whenever you want. And you wouldn’t be alone.”

Yuri’s eyes narrow. “Maybe I like being alone.”

“Maybe you do,” Otabek allows, “but I’m just saying—you don’t _have_ to be. It’s just an idea.”

“What other ideas are you having, Otabek?” Yuri turns away, bracing his hands on the kitchen counter and staring hard at the black and white tiled wall. “How _far_ does this offer go?”

Otabek gets his drift. “Only as far as you want. I have a second bedroom… you can have as much space to yourself as you want.”

Yuri twists his mouth, thinking. “Okay,” he agrees. “I’ll go back with you.”

 

 

In Almaty, Yuri examines the interior of Otabek’s apartment. “It doesn’t look like anyone lives here.”

Otabek shrugs. “I don’t need a lot of stuff.”

“Not like _stuff_ , just… No pictures? Knick-knacks?”

“Knick-knacks?” Otabek repeats incredulously.

“You know what I mean. Where are your medals?”

“They’re around here somewhere.”

“You don’t _know_?”

“That’s just not a big part of my life anymore.”

Yuri frowns. “Please tell me you still skate.”

“I coach every week.”

“That’s not the same at all! You never put on some music and just skate for fun?”

Otabek closes his eyes, breathing deeply. “I don’t see why it matters so much to you.”

“Maybe, if you didn’t stop talking to me for three years, you’d be able to figure it out,” Yuri mutters.

“Stop talking to—you stopped talking to _me_!”

“Okay,” Yuri says, dropping his bags on the floor. “We’re doing this _now_? Really?”

Otabek folds his arms. “I guess we are. You didn’t have time to talk to me anymore, Yuri.”

“I always had time for you, dumbass. I just started getting all these one-word replies. What was I supposed to do with that? I figured you had a new—girlfriend, or something. But no, you were busy being a martyr. I never asked you to stop _anything_.”

It is possible, Otabek thinks, that Yuri is right about all of this. In the haze of painkillers and disappointment in the months after that last Grand Prix, Otabek may have… miscalculated. He chews on the inside of his cheek as the silence stretches out. Finally he says, “You really didn’t want to stop talking?”

“You’re so fucking _thick_ , Otabek!” Yuri’s almost shouting now, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. His fists are clenched. “No, I didn’t want to stop. _Any_ of it, I mean. I would have liked having a friend this whole time. It hasn’t all been peaches and _fucking_ cream.”

“I’m sorry,” Otabek says. “I really thought… But I’m sorry.”

“That would have meant more around two years ago. Now… I don’t know, maybe this was a bad idea.” Yuri picks up Tigritsa’s carrier. “I have to feed her. Which room am I staying in?”

Otabek points, and Yuri leaves the living room. Otabek hears the bedroom lock click. _Fuck_.

 

 

Yuri doesn’t emerge again until almost noon the next day, looking rumpled and exhausted. His eyes are red. “What time is it?” he asks Otabek, who is drinking after-breakfast coffee on the living room couch. “Shit,” he says, when Otabek tells him. “This jet lag is going to suck.” He pours himself coffee as well, then sits down in a chair across the room from Otabek. “So,” he says. “I have been thinking.”

“Yeah?” Otabek’s stomach flips.

“My conclusion is that you are a fucking idiot.”

“I would have to agree,” Otabek says.

“I am also a fucking idiot.” Yuri takes a deep breath. “You assumed I was too busy. I assumed you were tired of talking to me. You could have asked… but I could have too. So I’m sorry. And I don’t think coming here was a bad idea. I need some time away from home. Yakov sent me like twenty angry texts when I said where I was going, but he’ll live. I can practice here. I’ll still make it to Worlds.”

“I’m really happy you’re here,” Otabek says. “I missed you.”

“Yeah?” Yuri grins at him; it’s the first real smile Otabek has seen. “Well, I’m hard to forget.” He swallows hard, then adds in a serious tone, “I missed you too. A lot.” He gets up and crosses the room to the couch, climbing up beside Otabek and folding his legs under himself. “I’m going to hug you now.”

His body feels birdlike in Otabek’s arms, and Otabek buries his face in Yuri’s shoulder, basking in the familiarity of it, his chest aching. Then Yuri pulls back, staring at Otabek like he’s memorizing every detail of his face. “Why are you still the same?” he whispers, and this time he doesn’t sound upset about it.

“I guess there was nothing I wanted to change.” Otabek is still holding onto Yuri’s shoulders, thumbs stroking the lines of his collarbone.

Yuri inhales, his breath shaky. “When I called, I didn’t really think you’d come.”

Otabek leans his forehead against Yuri’s and closes his eyes. “Of course I was going to come. You can always call me.”

The kiss Yuri gives him then is as soft and light as the snowflakes floating down outside, no more than half a breath long. Otabek _wants_ —he wants to haul Yuri onto his lap and kiss him til they can’t think straight. He wants to pull Yuri’s shirt over his head and trace each of his ribs with his fingers, or with his mouth. He remembers a fleeting glimpse of short blond curls in the locker room after some competition or another, and Yuri throwing a towel at his face, laughing, telling him to take a picture, it’d last longer. He wants more of that, more of Yuri.

He wants a lot of things, but he knows, he _knows_ , right now is probably not the time for any of it. It’s been years and maybe they don’t know how they fit together anymore; they must need time; there’s no shortcut to get back to… whatever they were.

“You kiss like a nervous teenager,” Yuri says, rolling his eyes.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “Is that so?”

“That _is_ so. I’m not a Ming vase, and that is _not_ how you used to kiss me.”

“How would you rather I kiss you?”

Something bright and certain is burning in Yuri’s eyes when he says, “Like this,” and crushes his mouth to Otabek’s, biting his lip hard enough to make him gasp, and Yuri swallows the sound and throws one leg over Otabek’s lap so they’re pressed together from chest to—well.

“I was trying to give you time,” says Otabek, breathless.

Yuri trails his fingers down Otabek’s jaw. “While I appreciate your restraint, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that too much time is dangerous. If I want something, I have to go for it now, because there might not be a _later_.” He rocks his hips and Otabek’s head falls back against the couch.

“So what _do_ you want?” Otabek grips Yuri’s hipbones hard so he can push back against him, and Yuri’s lips make a soft little _O_.

“I want to know what else you were thinking about all those years before,” Yuri says. “I’m done just making out in locker rooms every few months.”

Otabek closes his eyes and remembers. “I thought about you between competitions.”

“Alone in bed at night?” Yuri grins at him.

“Obviously. God, don’t make me be tactless.”

“It’s not tactless. It’s cute. It’s hot. Tell me more.” Yuri scrapes his nails down Otabek’s sides, under his shirt.

Otabek takes a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you to come to my room, so many times.”

“I would have come. I would have pushed you against the door the second you shut it and touched you here—” Yuri runs his palm up the inside of Otabek’s thigh— “and here—” this time just under the waistband of his jeans— “and here—” at this, Yuri brushes the backs of his fingers along Otabek’s dick, never taking his eyes off Otabek’s face.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Otabek says, dropping his forehead onto Yuri’s shoulder.

Yuri kisses his temple, and strokes his hair with one hand while continuing the terrible light touches that are somehow not enough and too much at the same time.

Otabek keeps swearing into Yuri’s shoulder until, after awhile, all he can say is, “ _Please_.”

Immediately Yuri undoes Otabek’s jeans, sliding off his lap as he pulls the jeans down around Otabek’s thighs. “That’s all you ever had to say,” he says, and sinks his mouth down around Otabek, holding his hips still so he can’t move. It isn’t long until Otabek is frantically tapping at Yuri’s shoulder, but Yuri only meets his eyes and goes faster, and it hits Otabek like a fucking freight train and his body curls forward hard, hips jerking out of Yuri’s grasp, and Yuri makes a choked noise but doesn’t stop until Otabek falls back boneless against the couch.

Yuri goes to the kitchen and Otabek hears water running. He returns running the back of his hand over his mouth, over his red, red lips. Yuri points at Otabek, circling his finger in the air. “You might wanna—”

Otabek looks down. “Oh, shit, yeah,” he mutters, quickly getting his pants back where they’re supposed to be. Yuri is hiding a smile behind his hand, the fucker. “ _This_ is not my fault,” Otabek says, motioning at his jeans.

“I know. I accept all blame,” Yuri says, settling himself beside Otabek once more.

“You seriously would have done—that—back then?”

Yuri studies his fingernails. “And a hell of a lot more. If you’d let on you wanted it instead of slinking away sadly every time you got hard from making out with me.”

“You… noticed that.” Otabek puts his face in his hands.

Yuri grabs his wrist and pulls. “You don’t have to _hide_ from me. And yeah, I don’t know how I could have failed to notice. It was, um. Noticeable.” He hasn’t let go of Otabek’s wrist when he asks, “So do you think I could stay here until Worlds?”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, but… won’t Yakov be upset?”

Yuri shrugs. “Maybe he’ll want to vacation here in… sunny Almaty or whatever. I think I can sell it to him.” He leans against Otabek. “I really appreciate this. In Moscow I was getting—I don’t know, it felt like living in a graveyard. I don’t want that. _He_ wouldn’t want that for me.”

Yuri doesn’t mean his coach now, Otabek realizes. He wraps an arm around Yuri and pulls him close. “No, he wouldn’t.”

 

 

At Worlds, to no one’s great surprise, Yuri outscores the silver medalist by eighteen points and breaks his own record again. Otabek claps til his palms sting. Later, at the medal ceremony, Yuri holds his newest gold high in the air and tilts his head back, his eyes closed. Then he brings it to his lips and kisses it once before hanging it back around his neck. News of Nikolai’s death has spread, and at this gesture, a fresh round of applause begins.

Otabek finds Yuri right after and wraps him into a hug. “You were _amazing_ ,” he breathes.

“I was, wasn’t I?” Yuri’s smiling at him, though his eyes shine with tears. “I hope I made him proud.”

“I know you did.”

“I was thinking,” Yuri says, “that I might rent out the Moscow apartment. It’s just… sitting there. And I don’t think I can go back just yet. I think I should look for an apartment here instead.”

Otabek shrugs one shoulder, as nonchalantly as he can manage. “You know, I’m still not using that second bedroom for anything…”

“You asking me to move in?”

“Maybe. If you want.”

Yuri gives a longsuffering sigh. “You know, we’ve established what kind of problems arise when we avoid saying what we want.”

“Okay, yes, you’re right.” Otabek tries to calm his racing heart. “I am asking you to move in with me.”

“I’d fucking love to,” Yuri says.

“You’re going to put shit on my walls, aren’t you?”

“Oh, so much shit. _All_ of my medals. Lots of cat photos. We’re going to find your medals and hang those up too. And I am _taking_ you to a rink, where we will skate _because we like to_.”

Yuri’s going to upend his life, it sounds like. “Looking forward to it,” Otabek says, and oddly enough, he really is.

**Author's Note:**

> i am sORRY that i felt the need to be so cruel to yurio but—look—i just needed to know what it’d be like if he and otabek didn’t talk for a long long time and then got FORCED TOGETHER AGAIN VIA TRAGIC CIRCUMSTANCES. forgive me??
> 
> what i learned by writing this is if you want to teach somebody social studies, get them to write stories. i now know the time difference between moscow and almaty, the major airlines flying between the two cities and what time they depart, whether or not you can travel in kazakhstan with a russian passport, the languages spoken in kazakhstan, and like 20 more things i didn't know in high school. >_>
> 
> also yes i have named it with madonna lyrics. WHAT. she understands how they feel.


End file.
